Metro-North Apologizes for Friday Commute

Morning commuters exit the Metro-North Hudson line train at Grand Central Station in December.

Reuters

Metro-North Railroad officials apologized for running too few trains for the morning commuters who flocked into Manhattan Friday morning, when less snow fell in the city than the railroad’s planners anticipated.

The railroad, which calls itself the busiest commuter rail network in the country by ticket sales, had planned a Saturday schedule Friday, when it expected the overnight winter storm to limit the number of riders headed into the city. But officials were forced to scramble, adding extra trains in the morning and before the afternoon rush when customers complained of crowding on the way into Grand Central Terminal in the morning.

Metro-North handled about 68% of its normal ridership Friday morning, a spokesman said — a reduced load but more than the railroad had projected.

“Based on forecasts of up to a foot of snow falling overnight, we were conservative in planning schedules to help reduce the chances that trains could become stranded or would have to be canceled,” Joseph Giulietti, the railroad’s new president, said in a statement. “When the sun shone through this morning, we had more customers than anticipated, particularly on the New Haven Line. We apologize for this morning’s crowding and expect to do better this afternoon.”

Other commuter rail lines also limped back into service on Friday. NJ Transit reported 30 trains that didn’t run Friday morning, in some cases because equipment and crews remained out of position after the greater disruption experienced on Thursday.

A total of 93 NJ Transit trains were listed as annulments Thursday, meaning they didn’t leave train yards or take passengers, spokesman William Smith said. The major problem on the railroad Thursday was a failure of switches on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor leading toward Manhattan’s Penn Station.

An Amtrak spokeswoman said the pace of snowfall had simply overwhelmed the switch heaters and snow removal equipment that are used to keep the track equipment free of snow and ice.